A Guide to Finding the Best Paraben-Free Skin Care Products

Paraben-free skin care has become increasingly popular as more studies suggest parabens may be a health threat.

Here I’ll guide you how to find skin care products that are not only free of parabens, but also really effective and good for your skin.

What Are Parabens?

Parabens is the name of a group of synthetic preservatives found especially in moisturizers, gels, lotions, and other skin care products.

Some studies suggest they may cause an increased risk of breast cancer, while others say they are okay. They can also cause allergic reactions such as skin rashes.

Extra Tip: Avoid Mineral Oil

Mineral oil is a petroleum by-product found in most lotions and even in paraben-free skin care products. It does your skin a disservice by covering it with a layer that can clog your pores and then strip the skin of its natural fats.

This can lead to acne break outs and dry skin, which in turn can lead to your skin over-compensating with an increased oil production.

Other names for mineral oil are petrolatum, liquid paraffin, and paraffin wax. The best paraben-free moisturizers do contain oils, but these are cold pressed plant oils and butters of things like jojoba, almond, coconut, shea, and grapeseed.

Look for 100% Natural Skin Care Products

Parabens are of course not the only synthetic chemicals on the market, nor are they the worst. Watch out for ingredients like dioxane, fragrance, TEA, and acrylamide.

Even if most synthetic chemicals found in skin care products aren’t life threatening or high-risk, they mostly don’t contribute anything unique or vital to the products either. They are easily replaced by ingredients that are beneficial for skin health.

By selecting products that are all natural you get much more benefits for your skin, and even your immune system can get a boost when you get rid of products loaded with synthetic chemicals.

Find Proven Effective Ingredients

So, you are avoiding mineral oil, synthetic chemicals, and you are looking for completely natural paraben-free skin care products. Now what?

Those natural goodies in there will definitely help your skin a lot, but there’s one more thing you can look for. And that is ingredients that have been proven in credible studies to do something special. Here are a few examples:

A sea weed extract that has proven to increase skin elasticity and is rich in soothing vitamins and minerals.

Natural vitamin E has been proven in many trials to help reverse signs of aging on the skin. But make sure there is enough of it in there, between 0.5% and 1% is a good concentration.

Something called Functional Keratin has been proven stimulate the growth of skin cells and increase it with up to 160%.

It can be hard to find paraben-free skin care products that are free from other chemicals, and that contain high-quality ingredients.

I personally use the products from Xtend-Life, but if you want to find something else, make sure you do your research well!